Posts Tagged ‘hizb’allah’

Hezbollah affiliated Al Mayadeen on Wednesday morning reported an overnight bombardment by Israeli planes of the Mezzeh military airport south-west of the old center of Damascus, Syria. The bombardment was apparently carried out from Lebanese airspace.

According to Syrian media, “in the capital, Damascus, residents woke at about four o’clock in the morning to loud explosions and high pillars of fire and smoke inside the military Mezzeh airport near the capital, the result of what appeared to be the targeting by a missile of the Zionist military. The site experienced strong and intermittent explosions over half an hour, while fire trucks and ambulances were rushing to the scene.”

The statement added that “until this moment the Syrian military has not issued an official statement to explain what happened, but it is almost certain that what happened is the targeting by a Zionist missile of the Mezzeh military airport out of Lebanese airspace.”

Several Arab social media news sources insisted the explosions were the result of a fire in an ammunition armory on base, and not an Israeli attack.

The IDF released a previously classified map on Tuesday showing where Hezbollah has embedded itself in civilian population locations throughout southern Lebanon.

The map shows the location of Iranian backed Hezbollah weapon warehouses, rocket launchers, infantry, underground tunnels and infrastructure, anti-tank positions and command posts, all of them embedded in or around civilian homes and population centers.

Hezbollah has turned the civilian population into human shields.

United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701, which then Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni negotiated at the end of the 2006 Lebanon War, was supposed to disarm and end all weapons shipments to Hezbollah, but as expected, it failed spectacularly, and now there are more missiles pointed as Israel than ever.

According to London-based Arab newspaper Rai al Youm, Israel attacked overnight Wednesday a weapons storage facility outside Damascus belonging to the Syrian army and a military convoy.

IAF planes attacked an armory of the Syrian army’s fourth division, and a convoy near the highway connecting Damascus and Beirut, Lebanon. The convoy was reportedly preparing to haul a large weapons load for Hezbollah. The attack consisted of two separate sorties.

According to Lebanese website el Nashra, the attack took place at 1:20 Wednesday morning, as four loud explosions were heard from the outskirts of Damascus. The armory, located near the highway, sustained major damages.

So far there has been no report of the Syrian army firing at the two IAF attacks. In September, President Assad’s army shot at Israeli planes flying over Quneitra, in southern Syria, near the Israeli Golan Heights border.

Hezbollah is sending more fighters from Lebanon into Syria, according to the Russian paper Izvestia.

At the moment, there are 5000 Hezbollah terrorists fighting for Assad in Syria, this latest batch raises that number to 7000, and the plan is for that number to soon go up to 10,000. These terrorist are part of a light division deployed on 4x4s, just like ISIS.

The move is in preparation for a crucial ground battle by Syria against the rebels in Aleppo. After Aleppo, they’ll move on to Idlib.

Hezbollah have taken a lot of casualties in Syrian fighting, and this could hopefully bring them more damage. The downside is that it also means more Hezbollah terrorists get real-world fighting experience which they’ll eventually use against Israel.

Israel has no intention to interfere in the Syrian crisis, but it is concerned over the possibility of weapons falling into the hands of the Shi’ite terrorist militia Hezbollah, Israeli Ambassador to Russia Zvi Heifetz told the Pozner program on Russian TV’s Channel 1 on Monday.

Members of Hezbollah are fighting on the side of the Syrian government forces against the Western-backed rebels and ISIS.

Vladimir Pozner, who was born in Paris to a Russian Jewish father and a French Catholic mother, was the host for many years during the Cold War of the nightly “Radio Moscow News and Commentary” show on the North America Service, and was renowned for his signature greeting, “Thank you and good evening.” Since 2010 he’s been hosting the interview show “Pozner” on Russia’s Channel 1. He has a lively and unconstrained style of hosting, often firing poignant off-the-cuff remarks at his guests. He often comments on how the political or economic topics being discussed on his show could affect the common people in Russia.

“Israel has a principle: we do not interfere in regional crises, including in what is taking place in Syria,” the ambassador said, but added his government has two issues of concern regarding the situation in Syria:

“The first issue is the possibility of weapons leaks into the hands of Hezbollah through Syria or through Iran. We’re also concerned over the presence of Hezbollah on the Golan Heights. Just imagine, if both Russia and the Western countries leave Syria one day — we’ll stay there. Everyone else will leave and we’ll stay and it is very important for us to know how we’ll stay and who our new neighbors will be,” Heifetz said.

Regarding the legitimacy of Syrian President Bashar Assad, Ambassador Heifetz said, “Assad is the president of Syria. We have known this for many years. If you mean whom we support, I’ll answer directly: we do not support anyone in Syria. Syria must solve its issues and we must solve ours.”

Hezbollah (Party of God in Arabic) has been fighting on the side of the Syrian army since 2012.

Egypt’s Court of Cassation, the highest in that country’s judicial system, on Saturday rejected an appeal by ousted president Mohamed Morsi over a 20-year prison sentence in the Ittihadiya clashes case, Al Ahram reported on Saturday. With that, Morsi’s appeals in this case have been exhausted.

On December 5, 2012, clashes broke out outside the Ittihadiya presidential palace between Muslim Brothers and protesters that left 11 Egyptians dead. The protesters rejected a constitutional amendment issued by President Morsi on November 22, 2012, allowing him to issue any decision or law he wished, leaving all alternative authority without the power to oppose or revoke it. Video footage from the clashes showed Morsi supporters beating the protesters, even tying one up to the palace doors and torturing another.

The Ittihadeya clashes are regarded as the turning point in the Muslim Brotherhood’s rule in Egypt. The protests not only the denounced constitutional decree but also called for Morsi’s resignation. Six months later, Morsi was ousted by the military following mass demonstrations.

The ousted president is also appealing several other cases where he has been sentenced to death. This is the first case where he has exhausted all appeals. After his overthrow, Morsi faced several charges including inciting the killing of opponents protesting outside his palace, espionage for foreign militant groups including Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, for escaping Wadi el-Natroun Prison during the 2011 revolution prior to his election as president, for leaking classified documents to Qatar, and “insulting the judiciary.”

IDF Intelligence and the Mossad have submitted to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu two separate reports regarding the fate of the missing Air Force navigator Ron Arad, Channel 2 News reported Monday night. According to the reports, based on an extensive examination of the entire body of information regarding the missing airman, including new information that appeared over the past two years, Arad died after his first few years in captivity.

Lieutenant Colonel Ron Arad, born in 1958, has been officially classified as missing in action since October 16, 1986, when he and pilot Yishai Aviram were on a mission to attack PLO targets near Sidon, Lebanon. A bomb dropped by their F-4 plane exploded prematurely, causing damage to the aircraft and forcing both crewmen to eject. Aviram was located by an Israeli Cobra and escaped by clinging to one of its landing skids as it flew away under heavy enemy fire. Arad was captured by the Lebanese movement Amal.

Arad was brought to Beirut where he was held by then-head of security of Amal, Mustafa Dirani. Amal chief Nabih Berri announced that he was holding Arad, and proposed an exchange for Shiite and Lebanese prisoners held in Israel.

In 1987, three letters in Arad’s handwriting and two photos of a bearded Arad were received, proving he was still alive. The Israeli government negotiated for his release, but talks failed in 1988. From that point on no credible information about Arad has been received, while many unsubstantiated claims of his whereabouts are still being made.

Israeli commandos captured Hezbollah member Abdel Karim Obeid in 1989, and Mustafa Dirani in 1994, and interrogated both of them about Arad’s fate. Dirani reportedly disclosed that in May 1988 Arad was turned over first to a Hezbollah unit and then to Iranian Revolutionary Guards, who may have taken him to Iran. Obeid and Dirani were released in 2004 as part of a prisoner exchange.

The IDF wanted to declare Arad as a fallen soldier whose burial-place is unknown, based on information funneled from Iran through a German source. But the navigator’s family rejected the idea, refusing to accept anything other than hard evidence. Several committees that examined the information regarding Arad have concluded the chances that he is alive are miniscule, but were not able to offer a conclusive statement.

The Israeli government has spent millions on the search for Arad, and offered a $10 million reward to anyone who could provide reliable new information. The family is no longer pressuring the military to keep up the search for their loved one, and the Born Free association that had been set up to look for Arad was dissolved back in 2012.